Author:

Keywords:

Adrenergic beta-Antagonists, Adult, Aged, Aldosterone Antagonists, Analysis of Variance, Ascites, Atrial Natriuretic Factor, Blood Pressure, Diuretics, Esophageal and Gastric Varices, Female, Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage, Humans, Hypertension, Portal, Male, Middle Aged, Plasma Volume, Propranolol, Renin, Reproducibility of Results, Spironolactone, Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Gastroenterology & Hepatology, ESOPHAGEAL-VARICES, SYSTEMIC HEMODYNAMICS, CIRRHOSIS, HEMORRHAGE, PROPRANOLOL, PREVENTION, CONTRACTION, REDUCTION, RATS, Mineralocorticoid Receptor Antagonists, 1101 Medical Biochemistry and Metabolomics, 1103 Clinical Sciences, 1107 Immunology, 3202 Clinical sciences, 3204 Immunology

Abstract:

The effect of spironolactone on esophageal variceal pressure (VP) in patients without ascites was investigated. VP was assessed using a noninvasive endoscopic gauge. Spironolactone was administered during a 6-week period at a dosage of 100 mg/d. This treatment decreased VP from 16.8 +/- 1.9 (SD) to 14.1 +/- 2.7 mm Hg (P < .001) in a group of 12 patients and from 18.6 +/- 2.1 to 13.7 +/- 4.1 mm Hg (P < .01) in another group of 8 patients who still had high VP despite chronic intake of propranolol. In both groups, placebo administration to 12 and 8 comparable patients did not significantly alter VP. Spironolactone induced a significant reduction of plasma volume (42.1 +/- 5.5 to 36.1 +/- 6.6 mL/kg body weight, P < .01) and of the concentration of alpha-atrial natriuretic peptide (alpha-ANP) (39.8 +/- 22 to 27.7 +/- 20 pg/mL, P < .01); in addition, a pronounced increase in plasma renin activity (PRA) (1.1 +/- 0.9 to 7.5 +/- 3.4 ng/mL/h, P < .001) was induced by the treatment. No significant changes in systemic hemodynamics were observed during the studies. Severe side effects were not observed except for a high incidence (55%) of painful gynecomasty in the male patients. In conclusion, chronic spironolactone administration effectively lowers VP, even in patients under chronic propranolol therapy. The combination of propranolol and spironolactone deserves further study as a prophylactic therapy of variceal hemorrhage, but development of gynecomasty might be a problem. Finally, we confirmed the reproducibility of VP measurements with the noninvasive gauge in chronic conditions.